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mFLUENCE 

OF 

THE MECHANIC ARTS 

ON THE 

HUMAN RACE. 



DELIVER^ BY 

CHARLES'GATAEEE 



BEFORE 

"^t ^zt'iiKnits' Instituti. of ^zio ©rUans, 

AND ALSO BEFORE 

^"iiz jFraitftlin; Institutt of JEofiiU. 



OPYR ic^; 




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NEW YORK: 
JOHN WILEY, 15*7 BROADWAY. 

1854. 






•'s-f- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, 
Bt CHARLES GAYARRE, 

In the Clerk's OflBlce of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



R. CRAIGHEAD, Printer and Stereotyper, 
53 Vesey street, New York. 



TO 

THE MECHANICS 

OF 

THE STATE OF LOUISIANA 

THESE TWO LECTURES 

ARE 

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



FIRST LECTURE. 

Ladies and Gentle^ien : — The influence of the 
Mechanic Arts on the destinies of the human 
race is a subject so comprehensive, that it requires 
the utmost power of condensation, to compress 
even a faint outline of it within the space allotted 
to the two Lectures which I have undertaken to 
deliver. The history of the Mechanic Arts would 
be the history of man himself, in all the various 
phases of civ^ilization, the modifications of society 
and the transformations of polity through which 
he has passed during so many centuries of his 
recorded existence, and should conclude with a 
prophetic survey of their progressive results 
through ages to come. It is impossible to do 
justice in a few pages to a subject so vast in its 
conception, so complicated in its applications, and 
so infinite in its deductions ; and it could not even 
be done, if permitted to enter upon it on a more 
extensive scale, unless with the possession of an 
amplitude and energy of intellect which, although 
occupying in the narrow cell of the brain no more 



4 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AKTS 

space than would fill up a lady's glove, could, in 
obedience to volition, and in imitation of the tent 
given by the fairy Paribanou to prince Ahmed, 
spread itself as wide as the canopy of heaven. 
This elastic texture of the mind, which, dilating 
without bounds, could be commensurate with the 
universe, and which would be so necessary to the 
proper accomplishment of such a task, was once 
possessed by a man who, at the age of thirty-one 
— nay — ^however advanced might have been his 
time of life, could alone have written, without 
provoking a sneer at his consummate presump- 
tion: "I have taken all knowledge to be my 
province." Need I name Bacon, of whom Ma- 
caulay has so beautifully said : that the glance 
with which he surveyed the intellectual universe 
resembled that which the archangel, from the 
golden threshold of heaven, darted down into 
the new creation : 

Round he surveyed — and well might, where he stood 

So high above the circling canopy 

Of night's extended shade — from eastern point 

Of Libra, to the fleecy star which bears 

Andromeda far off Atlantic seaa 

Beyond the horizon. 

Art is defined by that illustrious man, " as a 
proper disposal of the things of nature by human 



ON THE HUMAN EACE. 5 

thought, labor and exjDerience, so as to answer 
the several purposes of mankind." Physical or 
intellectual Labor, whatever it be, could not but 
suggest certain rules by which its operations 
could be performed with more facility, more skill, 
and with less loss of time. Those rules were next 
systematized, arranged, and classified as the re- 
sults of repeated and progressive experiments. 
These systems regulating the operations of the 
mind and body, in compelling nature to become 
the handmaid of mankind by ministering to its 
wants, gave rise to a decomposition of the mean- 
ing primitively attributed to the generic word : 
Art. Born with man, like man, it went forth and 
multiplied, and became subdivided into parts 
or branches originating from the same trunk and 
called the usefid or mechanic, the fine or liberal 
arts. 

The former are said to be " those wherein the 
hand and body are more concerned than the 
mind ; of which kind are most of those which 
furnish us mth the necessaries, and are properly 
known by the name of trades. The latter are 
such as depend more on the labor of the mind 
than that of the hand ; they are the produce of 
imagination and taste, and their end is pleasure." 
But is there sufficient clearness and precision in 



6 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AETS 

this definition ? Where is that point, in the ex- 
ercise of the arts, which ceases to be debatable 
territory between the powers of the mind and 
those of the body? At what definite moment 
does the one predominate over the other ? Take 
the Mechanic Arts for instance. Every one of 
them is composed of two elements — speculation, 
gradually growing into theory — and physical 
labor, daily ripening into practice and habit. 
But what is practice, if not the result of thought 
and the application of speculation, be it done 
consciously or unconsciously by the mechanic ! 
Conception is the first step — action the next, and 
when the fruit of both has come to maturity, how 
can we tell the exact period of its formation when 
the material power predominated over the 
ethereal ! 

The man who first invented a tool which we 
may now look upon as a very ordinary one was 
an artist, because in its production there must 
have been a greater exertion of mind than muscle ; 
although the one who copied it is a mechanic, if 
we adopt without qualification the definition I 
have quoted. But when that mechanic is at 
work, how do we know, at the time we look at 
him and give him that name, whether or not he 
may not be at that moment more engaged in an 



ON THE HUMAN RACE. 7 

intellectual than a physical operation? How 
do we know that the individual who is heavins* 
up the hammer, or driving the plane on a com- 
mon board, and pursuing an occupation so 
humble that it is apparently unconnected with 
any exercise of the mind, is not theorizing about 
it, without perhaps being aware himself of the 
mental process he applies to his manual labor, 
and by which he may suddenly strike out some 
wonderful improvement, by chance, as it is com- 
monly said, or seemingly, by a flash of inspira- 
tion ? How do we know, when we only see bodily 
fatigue pearling out into drops on his bent brow, 
and exhaustion thickening his panting breath, 
that, whilst his arms work, he is not weaving 
comparisons, pursuing a train of deductions and 
inductions, discovering connections between par- 
ticular operations, and lifting up his foot to step 
beyond the line of mere habit? How do we 
know that practice in him is not spiritualizing it- 
self into speculation and theory, just as that rough 
material on which he is plying may be one day 
dissolved into an invisible gas, at the magical 
touch of science? How do we know that his 
sooty hand is not already on the latch of the door 
which he is to open to that splendid procession 
of improvements which is waiting outside — that 



8 INFLUENCE OP THE MECHANIC ARTS 

he is not ceasing to be a mere unreflecting piece 
of flesh and bone machinery, and is not ascend- 
ing the pedestal of invention — that he is not going 
to rise to the dignity of a benefactor of his race, 
— and that on the hitherto clumsy work on which 
he had been apparently bestowing only physical 
labor, he is not now ready to stamp an eternal 
impress — the token of the sovereignty of the in- 
tellect — and make it the Caesar's coin that will 
pass current throughout the world. 

Thus the Mechanic Arts may gradually emerge 
from that kind of twilight to which they have 
been confined by the common prejudice of man- 
kind, and may brighten np and expand into as 
glorious an illumination as ever was produced 
by the fine arts. Thus may the mechanic secretly 
feel that he is unfolding the wings of intellectual 
ascension, when still in the estimate of his fellow 
beings he is plodding the dull earth, and when, 
agreeably to the terms of an accepted definition, 
which is not more accurate than most definitions, 
he is engaged in a work " in which the hand and 
the body are more concerned than the mind." 
This reflection must be consolatory and encourag- 
ing for those who exercise those useful arts which 
have so long undergone unmerited depreciation. 

Look at those two men who are making bronze 



ON THE HUMAN KACE. 9 

pitchers. "Who are they ? Mechanics ; will say 
the inattentive host of those who pass by. But 
what is called a man of taste happens to stop. 
He pays no regard to one of those workmen, and 
bows with reverence to the other. Why ? — be- 
cause the one, in his opinion, is a vulgar mecha* 
nic, and the other, Benvenuto Cellini — the great 
artist. Yet, for the crowd they were both alike 
— both engaged in the same operation — and both 
held brothers of the same trade before the dis- 
tinction of su|)eriority, perhaps accidentally dis- 
covered or acknowledged, had set them so far 
apart. But what is that degree of skill to which 
the other pitcher maker and chaser must attain, 
before he may be permitted, like his companion, 
to merge the mechanic into the artist, although 
he may never arrive at the same excellence? 
"Who can say ? And besides, what is the precise 
amount of taste required, to justify the issuing 
of such a verdict, to entitle it to be recorded, 
and to cause it to be respectfully carried into 
execution ? 

Look into a different direction, where two 
men are stuffing capons. Can there be a less 
exalted occupation? "Who is the one on the 
left? A mechanic. And the other on the right, 
is he of the same tribe ? Oh no ! — It is Fran- 



10 INFLTJENCE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS 

cis Bacon, the Lord Chancellor of England, stuff- 
ing a fowl with snow, to make an experiment, 
and applying his favorite process of induction, 
in order to " enlarge the bounds of human 
empire," through an operation which, apparent- 
ly, is only mechanical. Thus it is within the 
power of man, to ennoble even the stuffing of 
a capon, to cause mind to predominate over 
physical labor even in the improvement of a 
wheel, and to convert the mechanic art into the 
liberal art^that in which, according to the re- 
ceived opinion, the intellect is more concerned 
than the body. I hope that, in these two short 
illustrations, you will find a meaning and a 
morality, without further observations on my 
part. 

"Within the wants which God gave to our race 
lay concealed the roots of the Mechanic Arts, 
many of which must have been coeval with man. 
They were to keep pace with the progressive 
development of his intellect, as a condition of 
his existence. Wants increase with their grati- 
fication, and produce others which have the same 
cravings. Whatever were the original scanti- 
ness and simplicity of food, clothing, and habi- 
tation, to provide for them required a combined 
exertion of the body and of the intellect — which 



ON THE HUMAN KACE. 11 

is — art — in all the imperfection, it is true, of it? 
primitive rudeness, but yet producing a more or 
less " proper disposal of the things of nature by 
human thought, labor, and experience, so as to 
answer all the purposes of mankind " at the time. 
For instance, the making of the bow and the 
arrow is a mechanical operation; but he who 
first made a bow and arrow cannot be said to 
have been a mechanic, for its invention and 
practical application demanded a combination 
of thought far superior to the physical labor be- 
stowed on the weapon. So impressed with this 
belief was mankind, when in its infancy, and 
even when beginning to bloom into the adoles- 
cence of civilization, that all inventions, however 
simple they may appear to us now, were attri- 
buted to Gods and Goddesses, or at least to 
emperors and empresses, and to the most exalted 
of the human race. Thus spinning was ascribed 
by the Egyptians to their Goddess Isis, by the 
Greeks to Minerva, by the Peruvians to Mama 
Ella, wife of their first sovereign Mango Capac, 
and by the Chinese to the wife of the emperor 
Yao. Scythos, the son of Jupiter, was thought 
to have invented the bow and arrow, and you 
know that Bacchus, himself a God, and the son 
of the greatest of the Gods, was the first vine- 



12 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS 

dresser. These illustrations are sufficient ; your 
own erudition will supply you with the rest, if 
necessary. 

Thus, in the Mechanic Arts, as in man from 
whom they emanate, and without w^hich he 
could not fulfil his destinies, there is a duality — 
theory and practice — soul and body — practice or 
physical execution which, like the body, is 
restrained within certain proportions — and 
theory, which, boundless like the mind, may 
embrace all the endless variety of the things of 
nature, in seeking to adapt them to the uses of 
mankind. "Wherefore, then, should it not be the 
ambition of every mechanic, to keep himself on 
a level, by education, with those Mechanic Arts 
which I have shown rising to a higher degree of 
excellence than is generally assigned to them, 
and which, as I have said, required in their 
invention, and have displayed in their successive 
improvements more labor of the mind than of 
the body? Wherefore should not a noble at- 
tempt be made to refine trades into liberal arts, 
and by the increased and ever increasing appli- 
cation of the intellect to those trades, to com- 
mand for them that consideration which, for so 
many centuries, had been withheld, because they 
were looked upon as pursuits to be carried on, 



ON THE HUMAIT EACE. 13 

almost exclusively, by the process of manual 
labor. 

But bow came tbose useful arts, which led to 
the civilization of mankind, and which at first 
were the object of so much admiration that they 
were supposed to be the manifestations of divine 
intellect, to fall so rapidly into disrepute as to 
bring even contempt on those who exercised 
them 'i The reasons of this change strike me as 
the consequences of some facts, to which 1 call 
your attention. When the first Mechanic Arts 
were invented, men were free — they were 
hunters, shepherds, tillers of the ground. But 
when, for reciprocal protection, they formed 
themselves into associations, called tribes or 
nations, they soon began to war upon themselves 
as they had upon the wild beasts of the forests, 
and to reduce one another into a state of servi- 
tude. Hunting, which certainly is a species of 
war, had been the first occupation of man, and 
was thought to be the noblest of all those to 
which he subsequently addicted himself. When 
he became the owner of slaves, he soon relin- 
quished to them the drudgery of manual labor 
or the Mechanic Arts, and reserved his hands for 
the exclusive use of the bow and the spear, to 
which he was indebted for the lordly command 



14 rNPLIJENCE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS 

he had assumed. Sprung from the free cradle 
of mankind, but nursed in the lap of slavery, the 
Mechanic Arts, in spite of this adverse circum- 
stance, flourished to a considerable degree in 
Asia, and particularly in Egypt and Chaldea, 
where we still wonder at the gigantic fossil 
skeletons of the stupendous cities and monu- 
ments they erected. But these nations, great as 
they rose to be, were but a vast agglomeration 
of slaves, subjected to the dreaded will of a 
splendid despotism, cemented by force and often 
sanctified by religion, and there the Mechanic 
Arts were left to the most inferior classes — to 
the lowest in the hierarchy of slavery. It is not 
therefore in Asia, that the Mechanic Arts could 
command from mankind that position which 
they are now beginning to enjoy. 

When civilization brought the Mechanic Arts 
into Greece, it had slavery for its travelling 
companion, and the same consequences followed 
— they were left to the slaves. The masters 
reserved for themselves what is called the Liberal 
Arts — the pursuits of the free — from the word 
liber. Hence the admiration of the world was 
for the Liberal Arts, and its contempt for the 
Mechanic Arts — the useful, but the menial and 
the slavish. The former were the privileged 



ON THE HITMAN EACE. 15 

occupation of freedom, and the glorious exempli- 
fication of thonglit gathering itself into a visible 
snbstance in all tlie diversified splendor of form 
and color. The latter were debased with the 
touch of servitude, and were looked upon as 
more or less ingenious specimens of manual 
labor, to which the intellect could not be sup- 
posed to stoop. Hence the estimate in which 
they were held in that loveliest portion of the 
earth, where life was all thought and feeling, 
and where poetry seemed to rise up like a natu- 
ral exhalation from every object by which man 
was surrounded. 

Thus the Mechanic Arts, although the eldest 
of the family to which they belong, and to the 
manor born, were stript of their inheritance by 
the Liberal Arts, which assumed the exclusive 
sovereignty of the world and claimed its un- 
divided homage ; and it is almost amusing to 
see the contempt with which they are treated by 
their younger sisters. This feeling was carried 
so far at one time, that, to pursue any Mechanic 
Art, and therefore to minister to the comfort of 
human beings, was thought to be more than a 
condescension, more than an humble office ; it 
was looked upon as a degrading occupatiou, and, 
by som-e, as an immoral one, Avhicli ought to be 



16 INFLITENCE OF THE MECHANIC AETS 

spurned by free and higli minded men. If De- 
mocritus had discovered the principle of the arch, 
if Anacharsis had stooped so low as to imagine 
the wheel that was to help the potter in his labor, 
they were to be excused rather than to be eulo- 
gized for what they had done. Seneca, who had 
so much pretension to wisdom, would have 
considered it an insult, if he had been supposed 
capable of turning away from the pursuit of 
framing the stilts on which his inane philosophy 
and inflated morality walked so pompously in 
preaching their precepts, to waste a thought on 
the invention or improvement of a plough, a 
ship or a mill. That was good enough for his 
slaves or freedmen — it was too menial for him- 
self — it was not a sufiiciently imposing taxation 
on his mind, which could not consent to pay- 
such penny tribute into the exchequer of huma- 
nity. But, — to justify the murder of a mother by 
an imperial son, to kiss the foot of the parricide in 
abject servility, to write moral essays on the same 
tablets on which he had recorded the panegyric 
of a monster ; to indulge in the solemn mockery 
of praising poverty amidst the millions he had 
hoarded up, simplicity of life when owning 
palaces and gardens worthy of an eastern satrap, 
abstinence when reclining on the couch of 



ON THE HUMAN EACE. 17 

luxury, and liberty with the same voice which 
had hailed the divine Csesar, — was a liberal pur- 
suit, which slaves and freedmen could not be 
permitted to approach. 

" Archytas," says Macaulay, in one of his 
essays, " had framed machines of an extraordi- 
nary power on mathematical principles. Plato 
remonstrated with his friend, and declared that 
this was to degrade a noble intellectual exercise 
into a low craft, fit only for carpenters and 
wheelwrights. The office of geometry, he said, 
was to discipline the mind, not to minister to the 
base wants of the body. His interference was 
successful; and, from that time, according to 
Plutarch, the science of mechanics was con- 
sidered as unworthy of the attention of a philo- 
sopher." 

In a later age, Syracuse being besieged, Ar- 
chimedes, the celebrated mathematician, set fire 
to the fleet of the enemy by causing the concen- 
trated rays of the sun to be reflected from a 
mirror of his invention, and spread terror among 
the invaders by the construction of engines 
which scattered death and havoc at a prodigious 
distance. But the sage thought that, to descend 
from the altitude of his learned speculations to 
the flat level of practical utility, was a sacrifice 



18 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AETS 

of intellectual dignity which needed an apology, 
and he spoke of his improvements in the Mecha- 
nic Arts, either as derogatory acts, which had 
been forced from him by the necessities of the 
moment, or as trifling amusements into which 
he had allowed his mind to relax. 

The destruction of the Roman empire, with 
the convulsions which preceded and followed 
that great event, were not favorable to the deve- 
lopment of the Mechanic Arts, either theoreti- 
cally or practically, and were not of such a 
nature as to procure for them a higher degree 
of estimation from mankind, when it was relaps- 
ing into the ignorance of barbarian life. In the 
feudal ages, those arts were left altogether to 
the serfs, and neither the iron clad baron, the 
cloistered monk, and the disputatious scholar, 
nor the fierce sectarian or religious zealot were 
disposed to favor those engaged in the Mechanic 
Arts, and ever thought that there was any merit 
in undertaking to increase by them the power, 
and to ameliorate the condition of the human 
race. It is only about two hundred and fifty 
years ago, under the reign of James the First, in 
Great Britain, that their importance and the 
consideration they deserved began to be appre- 
ciated. Then was preached the doctrine of 



ON THE HUMAN KACE. 19 

utility and progress, whicli has since been called 
the Baconian doctrine, from the name of its ori- 
ginator. That great innovator maintained that 
the end of science and art ought to be : " The re- 
lief of man's estate." It was : commodis hnmanis 
inservire : "To serve tlie interests of huma- 
nity." It was : efficaciter operari ad sublevanda 
vitse humanse incommoda : "To remove effica- 
ciously the incommodities of human existence." 
It was: dotare vitam humanam novis inventis 
et copiis: "To endow mankind with new in- 
ventions, resources, and faculties." One of the 
most praiseworthy objects of the highest in- 
tellect was, in his opinion, that of teaching man 
how to use his hands, how to become a skilful 
mechanic, and how to improve the arts which 
are so indispensable to his existence and welfare, 
by the combination of theoretical and practical 
knowledge. Suiting the example to the precept, 
he said : " that, as nothing was insignificant that 
could minister to the slightest wants of humanity, 
and nothing too humble, provided it was useful, 
to be disdained by the intellect,* whatever of an 

* Quique architectus fortasse in philosophia et seientiis esse 
debeam, etiam operarius et bajulus, et quid vis demum fio, 
cum hand pa^ca quae omnino fieri necesse sit, alii autem ob 
innatam superbiam subterfugiant, ipse sustineam et exsequar. 



20 rNTLTJENCE OF THE MECHAjaO ARTS 

architect he might perhaps become in philosophy 
and the sciences, and whatever else he might 
happen to be, he would not disdain still to labor 
as a common workman and stone carrier, and 
do all those small things from which shrinks 
the vain pride of others." Thus Bacon aimed 
at a generous innovation in the ideas and feelings 
of mankind. He found the Mechanic Arts 
crouching under the depreciation which had 
kept them in a state of imbecile servitude, and 
every man of liberal education turning away 
from them with scorn, and thinking them un- 
worthy of his attention. What had been the 
inevitable consequence of such a prejudice ? It 
was, that many of the arts which were undoubt- 
edly the most useful, and therefore of the most 
vital importance to the human race, and which, 
under the investigations of a scientific mind, 
were susceptible of the most wonderful improve- 
ments, had been unnoticed by the speculations 
of the intellect, and pushed aside as ignoble 
rubbish befitting only the manipulation of 
joiners, masons, smiths, weavers, and apothe- 
caries. It was necessary to assert the primo- 
geniture of those arts, to vindicate the dignity 
of their nature and of their rights, to assign to 
them the prominent post to which they are en- 



ON THE HUMAN KACE. 21 

titled in the van of civilization ; and to proclaim 
in the words of one of the most brilliant of 
modern historians : " That, as they have a most 
serious effect on human happiness, they are not 
unworthy of the attention of the highest human 
intellect." Thus Bacon gave the first blow to 
remove the barrier that impeded the progress 
of the Useful Arts, and registered in the records 
of posterity the verdict of genius against that 
contempt of centuries which had assumed the 
prescriptive right of confining them within the 
narrowest sphere, and to keep those who exer- 
cised them for ever sunk to the lowest depths 
of society, in utter forgetfulness that those Me- 
chanic Arts were coeval with the birth of man, 
that they had civilized him, and that, without 
them, those Fine Arts of which we are so proud, 
and which have monopolized the attention, the 
studies, and the admiration of mankind, could 
not have existed. 

But were the Mechanic Arts deserving of the 
low estimate in which they were held, and is it 
true that the mind has less to do with them than 
the physical powers of man ? To ascertain how 
much of mind there is in them, look at their 
results, and judge of the tree by its fruits. To 
him who may inquire what the Mechanic or Use- 



22 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AKTS 

ful Arts have done, I answer : they have puri- 
fied the pestilential breath of disease, clipped 
its dusky wings, dried up many of its sources, 
ascertained the various character of the hateful 
family into which it diversifies itself, and have 
restrained, or conquered, if not entirely annihi- 
lated that relentless foe ; they have deadened the 
sting of pain ; and they have, as the tables of 
mortality will show, prolonged the duration of 
human life. If the soil round us blooms with 
more fertility — ^if the mariner ascends his bark 
with no hesitation, and dares the pathless ocean 
with as great a feeling of security as he gam- 
bolled in his boyhood round the paternal roof, — 
if the warrior uses weapons, in comparison to 
which the Lance of Achilles would be as insigni- 
ficant and harmless as the bodkin used by a 
fairy's tiny hand — to whose influence is it due ? 
If, at the command of man, the darkness of night 
has vanished from this very hall where we are 
assembled ; if, in imitation of omni23otence itself, 
he could say : Let there be light — and there was 
light — whence does he derive that power ? Let 
us, with the help of the imagination, and with its 
lightning speed, make a journey throughout the 
world. Here come we to a wide estuary, and 
no means of transportation is at hand. — But lo ! 



ON THE HUjMAN KACE. 23 

— materials of iron, stone or brick gather them- 
selves up into a bridge of the most beautiful 
architectural form, and v/e walk over the foam- 
ing waves. Shall I tire you with the enume- 
ration of the endless prodigies we shall witness ? 
Do you w^ish to play with the thunderbolt 
of heaven — to see the most remote star that 
modestly twinkles behind the infinite host of 
fixed or moving orbs which have been flung like 
dust over the immensity of space — or to examine 
how many invisible beings a drop of water can 
contain? Do you wish to travel with almost 
viewless rapidity — to master all the elements — 
to annihilate distance — to remove mountains, to 
fly over their heights or to pass through their 
strong and compact ribs — to soar into the air, — to 
dive into the sea and walk at its bottom — to 
visit the gnomes in the frightful recesses of the 
earth — and to send to a friend who is a thousand 
miles away from you a message of love which 
he Vvdll receive in a few minutes? Do you want 
your carriage to whirl along without horses, and 
your bark to speed on, against the wind, without 
oars or sails? What other miracles do you 
want? — You have only to speak — and you shall 
be obeyed. But, before you depart, turn round 
to thank the Mechanic Arts, arid say no longer 



24: INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AKTS 

that " the body is more concerned in them than 
the mind." 

The Mechanic Arts had not been properly 
understood. Otherwise, how could they have 
been despised, when their effect is to raise man 
almost into a God, by giving him empire over 
matter! Is it not sufficient for their rehabilita- 
tion, that their end is the greatest comfort and 
happiness of the human race ? Is not the evi- 
dence of their intellectual essence in the mere 
fact that they make inanimate matter instinct as 
it were with life, that they appropriate to the 
use of man the plastic powers that lie latent in 
the womb of nature, and that they convert its 
substances, apparently the most worthless and 
common, into such gorgeous or delicate articles 
as may adorn a lady's brow or a monarch's 
throne. In the progressive discoveries by which 
the boiling water, bubbling up in a barbarian's 
caldron — the light and damp smoke it emitted — 
and the rough metal which contained it — were 
transformed into the complicated agent of 
power which we possess in the steam engine, is 
there not as magnificent a manifestation of in- 
tellect as in the most celebrated productions of 
the Fine Arts ? 

I have said that all the Arts belong to the 



ON THE HUaiAN EACE. 25 

same family, and it would require no great effort 
to show that poetry itself is not unconnected 
with the Mechanic Arts. Can it be denied that 
no poetical imagination ever dreamed the rea- 
lities with which thej have surrounded us ? Have 
they not actually produced things so strange, 
that they look as belonging only to the world of 
visions ? Have they not surpassed in what they 
have written on the broad tablets of nature the 
descriptions of the Arabian tales? Have they 
not achieved feats more bewilderino; than those 
related in the romances that disturbed the brains 
of the knight whom Cervantes has immortalized ? 
To use language which I find ready at hand, and 
which I borrow as being more elegant than any 
of my own : " have they not erected buildings 
more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin, 
fountains more wonderful than the golden water 
of Parizarde, conveyances more rapid than the 
hippogryph of Kuggiero, arms more formidable 
than the lance of Astolfo, remedies more effica- 
cious than the balsam of Fier-a-bras ? " I hope 
I may be permitted to add : is not their sober 
reason more magnificent than the wildest dreams 
that ever came out through the portals of brass 
or ivory 1 What talismanic wonders are to be 
compared with the miracles produced by the 



26 rNTLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AETS 

philosophy of the Mechanic Arts ? Which of 
those incantations in which superstition formerly 
believed ever produced results so astounding? 
Have not the Mechanic Arts already accomplish- 
ed some of those prodigies prophesied in the 
New Atlantis of Lord Bacon ? Had any human 
being related, a century ago, that he had seen 
what every child witnesses every day as a com- 
mon occurrence, would he not have been con- 
sidered as deserving less credit than Baron 
Munchausen, or Sinbad the sailor ? 

When Eletclier put the following lines in the 
mouth of Arbaces, the Oriental conqueror : 

He shall have chariots easier than air, 
Which I will have invented ; and thyself, 
. That art the messenger, shall ride before him 
On a horse cut out of an entire diamond, 
That shall be made to go with golden wheels, 
I know not how yet 

he was a poet — one who pursued a liberal art. 
But he who executed the poet's conception, he 
who gave an endurable and useful embodiment 
to those flitting visions of the brains, he who 
produced the fire-breathing horse and the golden 
wheels, when the poet "knew not how yet" it 
was to be done — is he not entitled to as exalted 
a seat as the poet himself on the broad platform 



ON THE HUMAN KACE. 27 

of the intellect ; and is he not incommensurably 
his superior as to the benefit conferred on man- 
kind? 

I invite you to remark, that the Fine Arts have 
long reached perfection, and have ever since 
remained stationary, whilst the Mechanic Arts 
seem destined to expand beyond any of the 
limits which the imagination can assign to their 
march. Has Homer ever been surpassed? Can 
there be a more eloquent writer than Plato, more 
splendid orators than Demosthenes and Cicero, 
more sublime historians than Tacitus, and greater 
philosophers than Socrates and Aristotle ? Has 
the sculptor Phidias ever been eclipsed ? Will 
those who erected the Coliseum and the other 
architectural wonders of antiquity — will Michael 
Angelo, Raphael, Murillo, and many others, 
their peers in genius, ever acknowledge a master ? 
Will the art of music ever find more admirable 
interpreters than Rossini and Meyerbeer ? The 
human mind can readily imagine that they can 
be equalled, but cannot conceive how they can 
be excelled. But are you not convinced, from 
the experience of the past, and on the evidence 
of the present, which meets your eyes which- 
ever way you turn, that there is no stopping 
point in the improvements of the Mechanic Arts? 



28 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AETS 

If this be true, if progressive expansion without 
bounds be one of their constitutional elements, 
do I venture too far when I maintain that it is 
illogical to say, that they do not appertain to 
the domain of the intellect as much as the Fine 
Arts, which, for centuries, have been moving in 
a mere circle, luminous though it be, and worthy 
as it is of all the admiration of our race, of which 
they are the delight and solace? Is not the 
divine nature of man better exemplified, and is 
not his imperial destiny better demonstrated and 
established, by the limitless conquests made and 
to be made by the Mechanic Arts over the world 
of matter, on which they inscribe the title deeds 
and proofs of his sovereignty? This can no 
longer be denied, and thus for them has come 
at last the day of justice. Truly, indeed, may it 
be said of the Mechanic Arts, that their triumph 
is great — for they have conquered the prejudices 
of the world with the noblest of weapons — in 
striking them with admiration and gratitude, by 
the magnificence of their works, and by the 
blessings they have showered upon our race 
with the almost gorgeous profusion of divine 
benevolence. 

Thus the celebrated Huygens, although he was 
the first mathematician and astronomer of his 



ON THE HUMAN KACE. 29 

age, did not blush, as Seneca would, at having 
discovered the means of rendering clocks exact 
by applying the pendulum, and of equalizing its 
vibrations by the Cycloid. That great philo- 
sopher and mathematician, Eobert Hooke, would 
have scorned a Plato's remonstrance against his 
stooping so low as to invent the spring or pocket 
watch, and several other mechanical improve- 
ments. The learned Otto Guericke, who invented 
the air pump, and the honorable Eobert Boyle, 
who improved it, never thought of apologizing, 
like Architas and Archimedes, for what they had 
done. A Howard, a brother of the Duke of 
jN'orfolk, did not think he was degrading himself 
into a slave, and that he was engaged in a base 
occupation, when he discovered a new process 
of refining sugar, ''by which more money has 
been made in a shorter time and with less trouble 
and risk than was perhaps ever gained from an 
invention." Sir Humphry Davy did not feel, ' 
as Socrates himself might, that he was derogat- 
ing from the majesty of the intellect, when he 
instituted a series of philosophical experiments, 
by which he constructed the safety lamp, with 
the assistance of which "the miner walks through 
a body of fire-damp in his subterraneous apart- 
ments without danger of explosion." Arkwright, 



30 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AETS 

who had not originally' received a regular scien- 
tific education, thought, no doubt, that he was 
following as noble and as intellectual a pursuit 
as that of any Greek rhetorician, when, for years, 
he went through an unwearied course of multi- 
farious studies, to improye the spinning-jenny 
— that so remarkable and so useful invention of 
his, " by which a pound of the finest cotton has 
been spun by machinery into a yarn extending 
more than one hundred and nineteen miles." He 
who, by a certain combination of charcoal and 
saltpetre, produced one of the most tremendous 
powers with which man is armed, lived probably 
in the time of Petrarch and Boccacio. The in- 
ventor of printing was, it is believed, contempo- 
rary with Pope Nicholas the Fifth, with Cosmo 
de' Medici, and with a crowd of scholars, then 
distinguished, now sunk into comparative ob- 
livion. But the prejudice which, for so many 
centuries, had been implanted in the human 
mind, had not yet been eradicated. Those two 
men, who had done more for mankind than all 
their contemporaries put together, were looked 
upon, it may fairly be presumed, as belonging 
not to the aristocratic circle of those who culti- 
vate the liberal Arts, but to the plebeian class of 
those who pursue the Useful Arts, and are called 



ON THE HITMAN RACE. 31 

Mechanics. Hence it is not surprising that no 
one thought of inquiring their names, to record 
them for posterity. But if the inventor of gun- 
powder, and particularly the inventor of that art 
which has made thought visible and given it life 
and body for ever, were permitted to reappear 
on this earth, is there orie among you who would 
not gaze on them with as much admiration as 
on any Mcholas the Fifth, Cosmo de' Medici, 
Petrarch, and Boccacio, that ever lived? This 
shows the change which has taken place in the hu- 
man mind, and the existence of a more correct ap- 
preciation or estimation of the respective merits 
of the Mechanic, the Liberal, and the Fine Arts. 
ISTay — the march of the Mechanic Arts has 
been such, that if the old definition of them, 
which I have quoted at the beginning of this 
lecture, possessed originally a befitting exactness 
of description, it does not now seem so accurate 
in its application. You will recollect that the 
definition, acknowledged almost by all writers, 
is : " that the Mechanic Arts are those in which 
the hand and body are more concerned than the 
mind." Therefore its product, partaking of the 
nature of the producer, must be that in which 
there is more manual than intellectual labor. 
But is this the fact ? On the contrary, is it not 



32 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AUTS 

well known that, frequently, the most exqui- 
site product of the Mechanic Arts is that issuing 
from those manufactures which may be said to 
dispense entirely with manual labor, by the use 
of such machinery as works with little or no aid 
of the human hand, but only through the will 
of the human intellect. For this reason, the 
former scholastic distinctions established be- 
tween, the Arts ought to be abolished, and the 
old landmarks removed. The mutual assistance 
existing between the Arts is so great, their affini- 
ties are so strong, that they ought to blend har- 
moniously together in a democratic union, and 
disclaim all the pretensions of an unnatural 
hierarchy. Equals in rank, and with laurels 
crowned, hand in hand, and forming round man 
a radiant circle of love and protection, let them 
move on, satisfying his physical wants, refining 
his moral and intellectual desires, and gratifying 
his tastes for pleasure and beauty. The Mechanic 
Arts are the embodiment of the sober faculties — 
of the ratiocination of man — the ingenious tools 
of his patient and reflective industry. The Fine 
Arts are the fairy children of his imagination — 
the gems that dropped from the rich casket of 
the mind — the realization of the dreams of the 
soul. The former are the fruits of the tree of 



ox THE HUMAN KACE. 33 

knowledge — the latter are the flowers, and the 
delicate leaves, and the variegated hues with 
which it is embellished. In that little world 
of inventions which man is entitled to call his 
creation, the Mechanic Arts, although " formed 
out of the dust of the ground," like Adam, are, 
like him, " endued with sanctity of reason," and 
are " upright with front serene to govern" the 
world. They are inade to 

Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, 
Subdue it, and throughout dominion hold 
Over fish of the sea, and fowl of the air, 
And every living thing that moves on the earth. 

To complete the comparison, I will say that 
the Fine Arts are, like Eve, "all grace, and dig- 
nity, and love," 

"With what all earth or heaven could bestow 
To make them amiable. 

I hope that there is nothing in the observations 
I have submitted to you, which can, in the 
slightest degree, be construed into a wish on 
my part to diminish the favor of that worship 
which has always been paid at the shrine of the 
Fine Arts ; and no one is disposed to bend lower 
than myself in the temple where the blest efful- 
gence of their glory abides. IS^ay — who, in their 
presence, is not impressed with a sense of their 



34 mFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AKTS 

majestic loveliness and supreme excellence? 
Look at the dying gladiator — yon forget the 
marble — yon feel tempted to I'ush to the assist- 
ance of the quivering flesh and the streaming 
blood which you fancy before you, for 

He leans ■upon his hand — his manly brow 
Consents to death — but conquers agony, 
And his drooped head sinks gradually low — 
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one. 
Like the first of a thunder shower ; and now 
The arena swims around him — he is gone. 
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch 
who won. 

Is not the whole scene as vividly before you, as 
if you were sitting in a Koman amphitheatre ? 

But stop, and beware of profane intrusion. 
Here is : 

The lord of the unerring bow, 
The god of life, and poesy, and light — 
The sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight ; 
The shaft hath just been shot — the arrow bright 
With an immortal's vengeance ; in his eye 
And nostril beautiful disdain, and might, 
And majesty, flash their full lightnings by — 
Developing in that one glance the deity. 

Is not the illusion complete ? Do you not feel 
that you are in the presence of the Apollo of 



ON THE HUMAN RACE. 35 

Belvedere ? And are yon not indebted for it to 
poetry — the most beantiful, the most bewitching 
of the Fine Arts — the pnrest fonntain of delight 
given to man, and where bnbble up, invitingly 
to his lips, the perennial waters of immortality. 

Shall I point out to you the Yenus de' Medici — 
the dream of genius drunk with love — ^the cold 
stone made to breathe immortal grace, youth, 
and divinity — every perfection that visible 
substance can possess, gathered into a goddess 
— the divine forehead — the ambrosial lips — the 
soft curving lines of a body from which voluptu- 
ousness seems to exhale, as perfume from the 
rose? 

Shall I attempt to describe the ecstasy which 
every one must feel at sight of the Coliseum, 
St. Peter's church, the cathedral of Seville, the 
Moorish Alhambra, and so many other architec- 
tural wonders ? Shall I speak of painting — 
which makes us shudder at the agonies of the 
crucifixion, and fall prostrate, shrouding our face 
from the overpowering glories of the transfigura- 
tion? Shall I mention music, that lingering 
echo of heaven preserved in the human soul — 
which soothes even the fury of the maniac, and 
which has a voice equally acceptable to the 
prostration of grief and to the elation of happi- 



36 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS 

ness? I have said enough to show that, if I 
claim for the Mechanic Arts a portion of that 
sovereignty which their favored sisters had 
hitherto exckisivelj exercised over the world, I 
am as willing as any one to pay the tribute of 
my allegiance, when passing before the throne 
on which the admiration of mankind has placed 
the Fine Arts. 

This is but a brief sketch, inadequate to the 
merits of the subject — a flitting and vague 
shadow cast on the wall — the imperfect concate- 
nation of a few thoughts, caught at random and 
on the wing, as they sped their hurried flight — 
the mere outline or indication, rather than, the 
completion, of a picture. This lecture, defective 
as it is, closes at the point where I have con- 
ducted you — the rehabilitation of the Mechanic 
Arts in the estimation of mankind. In my next, 
I shall attempt to lay before you, in the same com- 
prehensive manner, some further considerations 
connected with the influence those arts have 
had, and which they will continue to exercise 
on the destinies of the human race. This is but 
the portico of the ediflce through which it will 
be my pride to escort you, on a future occasion, 
should you deem proper to honor me with your 
attendance. 



SECOISTD LECTUKE. 



The Mecliauic Arts, wliich are a subdivision of 
art, are themselves liable to subdivisions, wliicb 
may be compared to tlie infinite steps of that lad- 
der Jacob saw descendiuo^ from heaven to earth. 
Those steps, however immense was the difference 
between the highest and the lowest, were indis- 
solnblj bound together by the same frame, and 
were equally trod by the angels. Thus does 
man, through the various gradations of the 
Mechanic Arts, proceed to comfort, happiness, 
and a higher state of intelligence. Hence, in 
assigning to every one his rank in the produc- 
tion, transformation, and distribution of such 
material objects as are suited to the satisfaction 
of the wants of our race, we first meet, as I have 
said in my preceding lecture, the hunter, the 
fisherman, the shepherd, the husbandman ; and, 
ascending into a higher region, we find the 
artisan, manufacturer and engineer, whilst turn- 
ing to the sea, our eyes rest on the shipwright 
and sailor. To designate by their proper deno- 



38 INFLUENCE OP THE MECHANIC AETS 

minations all tlie artisans wlio are the fruitful 
progeny of tlie Mechanic Arts, would be to 
attempt a nomenclature almost without an end. 
The sons of industry count their numbers by 
legions ; and I shall content myself with observ- 
ing, that they may be divided into three great 
classes: Those who produce, those who trans- 
form, and those who distribute or carry. As to 
the "materials on which they operate, they are 
contained in the boundless stores of vegetable, 
animal and mineral wealth to be found over the 
surface or in the bosom of the earth. As to the 
tools with which they have to work, they are the 
physical and intellectual powers of our race. 
Thus the producer, after having brought out the 
primary materials, lays them in the lap of him, 
who, with the assistance of manual, mechanical 
or chemical agencies, transforms them into com- 
modities for the market of the world, and who, in 
his turn, hands them over to the carrier, whose 
task is to investigate the best, the safest and the 
most rapid means of transportation. Thus is 
made apparent to you the chain of affinity which 
links together those three great classes of opera- 
tive industry, one single branch of which will 
illustrate the distinctions to which I allude, and 
exemplify the prodigious variety and degree of 



ON THE HUMAN KACE. 39 

physical and intellectual labor of which, man is 
capable, in its application to one solitary mate- 
rial selected amidst the gorgeous profusion of 
those with which nature intends to stimulate 
our ambition. 

Take for instance that apparently worthless 
and dull looking metal,* called iron. As soon as 
man had the ingenuity to make it subservient to 
his uses, to how many different occupations did 
it not give rise ? — The perforation of the ground 
to the level of the ore, the erection of pumps for 
drainage, the contrivances of ventilation, the 
hoisting of the whole mining apparatus, the 
bellows, the blast furnaces, the forges, the cupolas, 
the formation of the requisite steam or water 
power, the construction of bridges, canals, rail- 
ways, harbors, docks, cranes, &c., for transpor- 
tation, and all the necessary devices to overcome 
the forces of inertia, gravity and cohesion ? But 
after the miner has extracted and sorted the ores, 
comes the engineer, who speeds to the smelting 
station, and dehvers them to the iron master, who, 
in his sphere of operation, will, after having re- 
duced them into cast iron, run them into rough 
pigs or regular moulds, which, under the plastic 
application of mechanical and chemical agencies, 
are transformed into bar and plate iron of all sizes 



40 INFLUENCE OP THE MECHANIC AETS 

and shapes. The refining process still goes on, 
and the best iron bars are converted into steel 
by the cementation furnace, the forge, and the 
tilt hammer. We are next gratified with the 
production of tin plates, anchors, chain cables, 
files, nails, needles, wire, &c., — and many other 
ever varying and fanciful or useful objects, in 
the hands of the founder, the cutter, the lock- 
smith, the gratesmith, coachsmith, gunsmith, 
tinman, and other handicraftsmen who under- 
stand the manifold uses of this most valuable 
metal. Therefore, as you see, by the joint ap- 
plication of the physical and intellectual labor 
of man, this hard and unwieldy substance can be 
melted into a liquid and cast into any mould or 
i^rm. It can be forged into chains that will 
bind Prometheus on his rock ; it can be drawn 
out into the light but firm texture of the shirt 
of mail that will protect the warrior's breast, or 
into the gossamer gilt net that will keep captive 
the fairest silken tresses a lady's hair can boast. 
It will extend into plates or sheets ; it will bend 
like the willow ; it will soften into a cushion fit 
for the light slumber of childhood, and assume 
the elasticity of a spring to ease the motion of 
the invalid ; it will harden itself into the me- 
tallic finger with which Franklin dared the 



ON THE HUMAN RACE. 41 

sliock of heaven's tlinnderbolt, and sliarpen it- 
self into the keen edge of the sword with which 
Washington secured the liberty of his country. 
It is the obedient slave that waits on all oiir 
wants, onr desires, and even onr caprices. It 
fertilizes the domain of agricnlture, and is 
equally indispensable to all the arts and sciences. 
It becomes as delicate as gauze, as light as air, 
and floats on the ocean. If in the shape of the 
cannon and the bomb it serves the angry 
passions of man, in the shape of a medicine it 
contributes to his health, and is so friendly to our 
race, that it is to be found in our blood, and 
constitutes a part of the elements which enter 
into our composition. For all these wonders, in 
connection Avith a single material supplied by 
nature, we are indebted to the Mechanic Arts. 
But in their application, even when thus con- 
fined solely to one object, what a variety of 
occupations! What gradations in the calls 
made on the intellect and on physical labor! 
What a diversity of ojDerations — many merely 
modifying the shape or form of matter — some 
changing its very texture and constitution — 
others consisting in multiform, capricious, and 
exclusively physical manipulations — some which 
demand the greatest and sublimest effort of the 



42 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AETS 

intellect — others whicli require none whatever. 
This applies to every branch of the Mechanic 
Arts. But, notwithstanding the diversity of 
their nature, they form a harmonious whole — a 
magnificent architectural structure, in which the 
vilest material is not without its utility, and is 
necessary to the general effect. Some of the 
rooms may be comparatively humble or small — 
more or less gilded and ornamented, and lighted 
up with less brilliancy — but they all belong to 
the same gorgeous edifice. 

Let me here call your attention to the fact, 
that one of the happiest influences of the Mecha- 
nic Arts is to compel man to the study of nature 
in the pursuit of the gratification of his wants, 
and that the study of nature leads to the know- 
ledge of God, to the establishment of religion, 
and to all its beneficial consequences. 

Among the effects of the Mechanic Arts we 
must also count the multiplication and extension 
of property, and, consequently, the enlargement 
of the basis of civilization. 

Socrates is reported to have said, that " those 
who want the least, approach the nearest to the 
Gods, who want nothing." This saying does not 
seem to me to be worthy of him who was de- 
clared by the oracle of Delphi to be the wisest 



ON THE HTJATA-N" EACE. 4:3 

of mankind ; for, were Ms sentiment correct, tlie 
savage would be the specimen of perfection 
among men and the nearest approach to the 
deity. The Mechanic Arts have proved the fal- 
sity of this remark; for, by the progressive 
multiplication and gratification of the wants of 
man, they have led him, in the aggregate, to tiie 
enjoyment of such physical comforts as he had 
never attained, and to a degree of intellectual 
cultivation which he had never possessed. Wants 
stimulate the intellect into action, and it is the 
enlargement of the mind, not the absence of the 
wants, which permits us to clram congeniality 
with the spiritual nature of our creator. 

It is astonishing what a length of time this 
enlargement of the mind required, in spite of the 
incessant stimulus of our increasing wants ! How 
many centuries were to elapse, before man 
should discover the elements of power which 
God had laid around him in so ostensible a man- 
ner ! How interesting it would be to read line 
by line the history of his struggles, and to fol- 
low him step by step in his voyage of discovery, 
throuo:h the chaos of io-uorance in which he was 
born, to that realm of regularity and light, where 
we see him possessing the knowledge of geo- 
metry — comprehending the laws of equilibrium 



44: INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS 

and motion, the composition, decomposition and 
application of forces, some too large for physical 
strength, others too delicate for human touch — 
enlarging old agencies, and creating new ones — 
studying the effects of air, cold, heat, water, 
elasticity, pressure — the interposition of sub- 
stances — resistance — adhesion' — and the effects 
of friction in its different relations with the 
nature and extent of surface, and its combina- 
tions of antagonistic position or affinity with 
bodies of different and of the same kinds ! All 
this knowledge is now necessary to the Mecha- 
nic Arts, originally so simple, so rude, so desj^is- 
ed, and apparently so unconnected with the 
intellect. Every sort of knowledge is now em- 
braced by them — practical and theoretical — the 
geometry of the hands and the geometry of the 
brains — the geometry of the shop — and the geo- 
metry of the academy ; for it is evident that he, 
who, in the vast field of the Mechanic Arts, 
should not possess both, would only hop along 
on one leg and proceed much slower and less 
safely than a competitor in w^hom the same 
deficiency did not exist. 

In illustration of the preceding remarks, I do 
not hesitate to mention the laws of friction, and 
to say, that the most learned man, speculating 



ON THE HUMAN KACE. 45 

upon them in the closet, if he had never wit- 
nessed their effects, would not come to any con- 
clusions of practical ntility, and that all his 
calculations, in their application, would result in 
a series of blunders. A lever is a very simple 
thing, and yet how infinite the calculations to 
which its action may give rise, and how compli- 
cated its direct, or indirect, and remote effects in 
their relation to the things on which it may bear 
and by which it may be felt ! How much time, 
labor and even genius have been wasted in the 
invention of wretched machines by indi\^iduals 
who imagined that levers, wheels, pulleys and 
cables wonld work in their application to matter, 
exactly as it had been arranged by the specula- 
tions of theoretical learning! If we every day 
hear of so many failures attending the investiga- 
tions of the men of science, it is because they are 
deficient in practical knowledge, because they 
have not exercised their hands as well as their 
brains, because, satisfied with taking a profile or 
front view of a machine, they have not stndied 
its anatomy. 

It requires both practice and theory to ac- 
qnire a peculiar knowledge which is exceedingly 
valuable in the Mechanic Arts — the knowledge 
of those machines which will work well only on 



46 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS. 

a large scale, and those wMcli can operate only 
on a small one. But by what laws, and on the 
evidence of what facts, is this question to be 
solved? What are the absolute proportions be- 
yond or within which a machine is defective ? ' 
What is the exact medium? What is the true 
size of an excellent watch, of a perfect mill, of a 
ship combining all the qualifications of speed, 
strength, and duration ? This is to be approxi- 
mately determined by the experimental geo- 
metry of the handicraftsman, assisted by the 
theoretical geometry of the mathematician. In 
the accomplishment of this desired end, they are 
like two chemical ingredients, which are respec- 
tively inert, but which derive power from their 
combination. 

In what system of natural philosophy, or of 
metaphysics, was there ever displayed more 
intelligence, more sagacity, and a greater amount 
of logical deductions and inductions than in the 
invention of those machines used to wiredraw 
gold, and in the operations of making lace, 
gauze, cloth, silk and velvet, in all the variety 
of texture, color, gloss and drawings in w^hicli 
they are brouglit to market ? Can one imagine 
any thing more beautiful, more delicate and 
more singular than the many complicated pro-' 



ON THE HUMAN RACE. 47 

cesses througli whicli tliose results are obtained? 
Shall I take a more general surs^ej of the mar- 
vellous productions of the industry of man, to 
show the necessity of education among those 
masses who are employed in the exercise of the 
Mechanic Arts? It is to that want of general 
education, to the absence of the combination of 
theoretical and practical knowledge, as well as 
to the causes I have already mentioned, that 
much of the slow progress of the Mechanic Arts 
must be attributed. 

Those arts, however, as w^e must suppose, had 
arrived at a' certain degree of improvement at 
the time when we hear of the construction of the 
tower of Babel, the confused multiplicity of 
language, the dissemination of the human race — 
and the deluge. From x^oah to the siege of 
Troy, it is difficult to ascertain the number of 
centuries which elapsed ; but, at that epoch of 
the existence of mankind, the Mechanic Arts 
had not done more than creep along slowly in 
the native slime of ignorance which covered the 
earth. Even when Homer composed his poems, 
there is no appearance that writing was known. 
Kings and princes prepared their own victuals, 
and were nothing but crowned butchers and 
sceptred cooks, and their wives, daughters and 



48 mFLTTENCE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS 

sisters, no better than royal washerwomen and 
seamstresses. They ate with their fingers in the 
most unsophisticated manner; they did not 
know the use of such things as spoons and forks, 
and ignored such conveniences of cleanliness 
as table cloths and napkins. "They had no 
chimneys — no candles — no lamps. Torches are 
frequently mentioned by Homer, but lamps 
never." When the king of kings wished to 
spend a social evening with those heroes with 
whose names we are so familiar, a vase was 
placed upon a tripod, and chipt-wood was bm^nt 
in it to give light. The ships which carried 
the Greeks to the far-famed walls of Troy were 
but uncouth specimens of nautical sldll, and 
mariners could, in those days, hardly lose sight 
of land, without thinking they were doomed to 
destruction. Much time passed off before the 
dull brains of Yulcan contrived the lock and key. 
The security of a bundle, the secrecy of a letter 
had to depend altogether on the inextricable 
combination of involutions into which a rope or 
a string was twisted ; but we know what became 
of the Gordian knot under the sword of Alex- 
ander. Sandals were the nearest approxima- 
tion to shoes, and against the profane invasion 
pf dust or mud the divine ankles of Helena 



ON THE HUMAN EACE. 49 

could not claim the protection ot stockings; 
warriors, whose memory is inustrious, rode tli-eir 
horses in the fashion well known to black nrchins 
on our southern plantations — withont the con- 
venient appendages of saddle and stirrups. 
Plutarch reports'^'' that Gracchus caused stones 
to be erected along the highways leading from 
Rome, for the convenience of mounting a horse, 
because, even at that time, stirrups were un- 
known in the Eternal Citv, though an obvious 
invention ; and Caesar himself, the master of the 
world, did not know the luxury of wearing linen. 
We have the proof, however, that, from the 
siege of Troy to the greatest of human events — 
that which marked the Christian Era — some of 
the Mechanic Arts had reached j)erfection, and 
that many had been carried to a degree of im- 
provement, of which we have not perhaps a full 
and just conception. Of what they were we can 
judge by their productions — and those produc- 
tions we can sum up in a few words — they were 
such cities as Mneveh, Babylon, Rome, and 
others. But another deluge ensued — not cata- 
racts of water — ^but of human devastation; all 
the fountains of the great deep of barbarian 

* Thomas Dick on the Improvement of Society. 
3 



50 rNTLTJENCE OF THE MECHANIC AKTS 

sway were broken up, and the windows of wrath 
were opened ; and the rain of blood was npon 
the earth for ages. All the Arts were submerg- 
ed ; many of the secrets of hnman industry w^ere 
lost ; and civilization itself would have perished, 
if it had not taken refuge in the bosom of God's 
church, which, like the ark of gopher wood, 
went upon the face of the deluge. Although 
what we possess of the remains of antiquity does 
not convey to us as much knowledge as we 
might desire of the state of the Mechanic Arts in 
those days, particularly in their separate branch- 
es, yet we know v\diat they had done in the ag- 
gregate for the civilization of man and the in- 
crease of his race. Take for instance Attica, 
where on the most barren and contracted of 
territories, measuring about 210 square miles, 
there lived a numerous population celebrated for 
its wealth, its wit, and its refinement. Allow me 
here to say, as a passing remark, that the history 
of the Mechanic Arts, from the earliest time of 
man's existence to the destruction of the Roman 
empire, if it could be had, would be more useful 
and more interesting to us now, than all the other 
histories put together, with which our libraries 
are so abundantly furnished. But whatever was 
the state of improvement and refinement reached 



ON THE HUl^IAN RACE. 51 

by the Mecliaiiic Arts in the best clays of anti- 
quity, there are three discoveries to which they 
had not led: — the invention of printing — of 
making gunpowder — and the knowledge of the 
properties of the magnetic needle, which, by the 
social, political, and intellectual revolutions they 
have produced in the world, have been some 
of the most powerful causes of the advancement 
and promotion of the Mechanic Arts. 

A ray of light having begun to penetrate the 
Cimmerian darkness which had overspread 
Europe, the Mechanic Arts strove to revive, like 
plants, which, brought out into the open air of 
which they had been deprived, turn their 
withered heads towards the sun. But in the re- 
public of letters, all the sharpness and vigor of 
cultivated intellects were, by the force of habit, 
still confined to the pursuit of trifles; and the 
glorious task of improving the condition of the 
human race, by ministering to its comforts, and 
by the diffusion of knowledge, continued to be 
delayed. Those who undertook it, if any body 
did so knowingly, were, as I have mentioned, 
despised as mechanics, or ran the risk of being 
burnt as magicians. Witness what happened to 
Faust, who was one of the three men considered 
as the inventors of printing. 



52 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AKT8 

Under the reign of Louis the Eleventh, in the 
year 1462, Faust carried to Paris a number of 
Bibles which he and his partners had printed, 
and passed them off as manuscripts — the Art of 
printing not being then known in France. The 
sum usually obtained by the scribes varied from 
500 to 600 crowns, and, at first, he sold for that 
high price his copies of the sacred book. But as 
few only could afford to buy at that rate, he 
afterwards lowered his pretensions to sixty 
crowns. The astonishment was universal, and 
no one could understand how those manuscripts, 
as they were thought to be, could be sold so 
cheap ; but when he reduced the price to thirty 
crowns, in order to extend the market, all Paris 
was thrown into commotion. How could the 
modicity of the sum asked remunerate for the 
labor! Besides, was there not something pass- 
ing strange in the uniformity of the copies! 
Was it not beyond human execution ! Evidently 
some supernatural agency was at work. There 
was magic in the beautiful distinctness, symmetry, 
regularity, and similarity of those exquisitely 
ornamented leaves. The attention of the police 
was awakened, and the lodgings of the suspected 
sorcerer were searched — when, lo ! — his crimes 
were proved beyond a doubt. There were found 



ON THE HUMAN KAOE. 53 

in his possession too many Bibles to admit the 
possibility of their being copies made by hnman 
hands. It was clear that the assistance of the 
powers of darkness had been invoked. There 
was but one pnzzling obstacle in the way of solv- 
ing this question : How could they have dared, 
and how could they have been permitted to 
meddle with the Bible, and to lay their bitted 
fingers on the book of salvation? The naked fact 
was there, however ; it could not be denied ; 
and what strengthened conviction was the cir- 
cumstance of the red ink with which the copies 
were embellished, and which was said to be the 
very blood the magician had drawn out of his 
veins to seal his pact with the devil. It was 
therefore seriously adjudged, that he was in 
league with the dreaded author of evil, and he 
was thrown into a dungeon to abide his trial for 
witchcraft ; and probably he would have fared 
no better than those who, in that age, were 
laboring under such accusations, if he had not, 
in self-defence, made known the secret of his 
invention. Hence the tradition of Faust and the 
devil, which has been so beautifully worked upon 
by the genius of Goethe. Such were the scenes 
which occurred and the feelings which prevailed, 
not yet four hundred years ago, in one of the 
6* 



54: mFLIJENCE OF THE MECHANIC AETS 

most populous and most enlightened cities of 
Christendom. How wonderful has been, since 
that time, the march of the human intellect ! — 
and to what is it to be attributed, if not, in a 
great measure, to the Mechanic Arts, and to 
their progressive improvements ! 

As long as the spirit of liberty was extinct in 
Eu|ppe, the Mechanic Arts seemed to slumber 
in the tomb in which it had been buried. " The 
houses of the poor, in England," says Holingshed, 
the historian, "were wattled and plastered 
with clay; and all the furniture and utensils 
were of wood ! the people slept on straw pallets, 
with a log of wood for a pillow ! " Henry the 
Second, of France, at the marriage of his sister 
with the Duke of Savoy, in 1559, wore the first 
silk stockings that were made in that kingdom ; 
and a pair of black silk knit stockings was 
thought to be a present sufiiciently royal to be 
offered to Queen Elizabeth, in the third year of 
her reign. The bridge !N^otre Dame over the 
Seine in Paris having fallen down in 1499, there 
was not a man in France who could undertake 
to rebuild it of stone. Even so late as the 12th 
century, very few houses were furnished with 
glass windows, which were not then considered 
as the necessary appendage of every building, 



ON THE HUMAN RACE. 55 

but as the introduction of a very great luxury. 
Edward the Third sent to three Dutch clock- 
makers a cajoling invitation to settle in England, 
and to exercise in his kingdom an art with 
which none of his subjects were acquainted. 
"The progress of agriculture had been so un- 
commonly slow," observes Karnes in his History 
of Man, "that, in the former part of the reign of 
Henry the Eighth, there did not grow in Eng- 
land cabbage, carrot, turnip, or other edible 
root ; and it has been noted that even Queen 
Catherine herself could not command a salad for 
dinner, till the King brought over a gardener 
from the Netherlands. It was in the year 1563, 
that knives were made in England, and pocket 
watches were introduced in that country only in 
15YT. Three years later, coaches were made 
known; before which time the imperial and 
haughty Elizabeth, on public occasions, rode be- 
hind her chamberlain. There was no saw mill 
before 1333 ; paper was made no earlier than 
the 14:th century. The Art of reading made a 
very slow progress — so much so — that, to give it 
encouragement in England, the capital punish- 
ment for murder was remitted, if the criminal 
could but read, which, in law language, is termed 
benefit of clergy. One would imagine that the 



56 INFLTJENCE OF THE MECHANIC AETS 

Art mnst have made a very rapid progress when 
so greatly favored ; but there is a signal proof 
of the contrary ; for so small an edition of the 
Bible as six hundred copies, in the reign of 
Henry the Eighth, was not wholly sold off in 
three years." What a state of ignorance ! What 
an intellectual apathy! What an indifference 
to moral improvement!. And this was in the 
age of the chivalrous Francis the First, of France, 
of the politic Charles the Fifth of Spain — in that 
age which is celebrated in history as having 
been the era of the revival of the Arts, and espe- 
cially of Literature ! 

This is a proof that the illiterate condition of 
a country is a sure indication of the correspond- 
ing state of the Mechanic Arts. But their pro- 
gress is in proportion to every fortunate change 
of circumstances which rouses the people out of 
their intellectual torpor. When the sense of 
former abasement gives way to the proud con- 
sciousness of the possession of dignity and pros- 
perity, a vigorous elasticity is imparted to the 
mind, which is communicated to every pursuit. 
It so happened in Greece, after all the brilliant 
events which dotted her territory with those 
flourishing republics of which the lingering rays 
of glory still illuminate the pages of history. So 



ON THE HUMAN RACE. 57 

it was with Athens, when her star culminated to 
its meridian under Pericles. Tlie enlargement 
or contraction of the human mind, the progress, 
the immobility, or the retrograde march of the 
Arts, and the extent of freedom or servitude 
resulting from political institutions, are so many 
circumstances which act and react on one another, 
as it were by the ebb and flow of a magnetic 
current. Liberty develops the mind — the mind, 
as it expands, carries forward the Arts — and the 
Arts, by the light they diffuse, have a tendency 
to promote or maintain liberal institutions. In 
a state of enlightened prosperity, a national 
spirit is created, works of genius or taste are com- 
posed, useful discoveries are made in every Art 
and Science, the fire of emulation spreads from 
one breast to another, until it gathers up into a 
general illumination. Thus when the bloody 
Octavius became the clement Augustus, when, 
with the irresistible power of a victorious hand, 
he had mastered or destroyed all the elements 
of civil war which had desolated Rome, and 
when he had restored peace, industry, and all 
the other blessings so necessary to the welfare 
of society, his reign became an auspicious era 
for the xlrts ; and let it be remarked that, under 
Augustus, if the government was a despotism — 



58 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS 

that despotism was a hidden one — preserving 
the forms of liberty. When it stalked abroad, 
under his successors, in all its naked hideousness, 
the Arts sickened and perished. They revived 
with the free republics of Italy — the free cities 
of Germany — the free cities of Flanders, which 
preserved so long their privileges and immunities 
in spite of the jealous enmity of the Dukes of 
Burgundy, and they struck deep roots among the 
Dutch, when those victims of oppression asserted 
those rights which brought them power, wealth 
and fame. The splendid and enlightened despo- 
tism of Louis the Fourteenth, or at least of some 
of his ministers, produced, to some extent, the 
blessings of liberty, and paved the way to the 
progress of Literature and to the improvement 
of the Mechanic Arts, which put in motion the 
hitherto stagnating waters of the public mind, 
and spread a desire of amelioration among those 
classes who were soon to shiver into atoms the 
hereditary throne of his race. 

Lnprovements of every kind in England were 
promoted by the restoration of Charles the 
Second, weak, foolish and corrupt as he was, 
because the people were exhilarated by the im- 
pression that the wounds of the country were to 
be healed for ever. But it is only from the day 



ON THE HUMAN EACE. 59 

on which was accomplished that glorious revo- 
lution which put William and Mary on the 
throne, that the liberties of England may be 
said to have been firmly established, and that 
ample scope was given to the development of 
all the pursuits of industry. Ever since that 
time the spirit of liberty has been gaining 
ground, and, with it, the Mechanic Arts, even 
under the worst forms of government ; and par- 
ticularly since the achievement of our indepen- 
dence and since the French revolution, they 
have been making more progress than they ever 
did since the beo^innino: of the world — so much 
so — -that now an improvement in the Mechanic 
Arts is frequently a revolution throughout the 
world. What efi*ect would the new production 
of a painting as beautiful as any of Titian's, or 
of a statue equal to any of the prodigies of sculp- 
ture which came out of the hands of Praxiteles, 
have on the happiness of mankind ? But the 
destinies of the humblest barbarian in the most 
remote part of the earth may be affected, in less 
than a few months, by a discovery made in the 
Mechanic Arts by a Fulton, a Morse, or some 
other benefactor of the human race. 

The march of industry has been such, that the 
tool of the Mechanic may be said to be now the 



60 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS 

sceptre of tlie world, and that the superiority of 
a nation over all others would be surely the 
result of its ascertained superiority in the Me- 
chanic Arts. It is also a fact worthy of notice — 
that the Liberal and Fine Arts can arrive at the 
greatest degree of improvement in a country 
where the masses are enslaved and impoverished, 
but where there exists a powerful and wealthy 
aristocracy ; whilst, wherever the Mechanic Arts 
thrive to a considerable degree, they are sure to 
gain for the people liberty and prosperity — at 
least some portion of it, or, at the worst, some 
exemption from oppression even under despotic 
governments. Another fact which must strike 
the philosophic observer is, that emulation, that 
great cause of exertion in man, does not exist in 
relation to the Fine Arts — for their productions 
can no longer be excelled ; but it is not so with 
regard to those of the Mechanic Arts, in which 
an improvement widens into other improve- 
ments, and seemingly as insignificant as a pebble 
when thrown into their deep waters, produces 
circles enlarging into others to which no limits 
are to be assigned. 

Thus those who pursue the Mechanic Arts 
ought to feel ennobled by the consciousness of 
their being engaged in works of such importance, 



ON THE HUMAN KACE. 61 

that tJiey are capable, in tlieir results, of modify- 
ing the face of the world according to the will 
of the human mind. It is particularly the Unit- 
ed States which may be said to be the destined 
home of the Mechanic Arts, and the seat of that 
power which they will ultimately extend all 
over the earth. The Patent Office at Washington 
shows the untiring zeal and the inventive genius 
of their votaries ; and it is as much to our ex- 
cellence in the Mechanic xA.rts as to the beauty 
of our political institutions which have secured 
the development of those x\rts, that Ave are in- 
debted for all our territorial acquisitions ;' among 
which California and Xew Mexico may be com- 
pared to two magnificent portals which have 
lately opened their wide gates to the introduction 
of American industry, American enterprise and 
American institutions over our whole continent 
from the Rio Grande to the Pacific, and, beyond 
its placid bosom, to those eastern regions of 
wealth, on the threshold of which we have al- 
ready set the foot which never goes back. 

E"apoleon the Great called the English a nation 
of shopkeepers. He, no doubt, thought that 
we were a nation of mechanics, and so exalted 
was his opinion of our skill and enterprise, that 
he once said that the day would come when we 
6 



62 mFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AETS 

should cross the Atlantic in a sieve. We have 
done better ; we have traversed all the seas in 
floating j)alaces not appropriated merely to the 
luxurious ease of a few privileged nobles, but to 
the humble wants of the masses throughout the 
world, and carrying away with them, within 
their hearts of oak, the seeds of liberty inter- 
mixed with the seeds of the Mechanic Arts, to 
be sown broadcast over the surface of the globe, 
and to enrich even its most sterile parts with the 
growth of human comforts and happiness. 

Another of the blessings of the Mechanic Arts 
is their having, by the increase of the objects of 
commerce, multiplied the bonds of union among 
the nations, introduced new relations and remov- 
ed prejudices, by almost annihilating the distance 
which separated them, and made peace so pre- 
dominant an interest over the minor ones which 
are causes of division, that those nations are ex- 
posed to very few chances of collision. The 
construction of manufactures, railroads, canals, 
and other colossal works have absorbed the 
funds thatxthe carrying of war would require, if 
waged by some of the great Powers of the earth, 
so that a hostile struggle among them would 
produce such a perturbation of the vital inter- 
ests of mankind, that it would not be of long 



ON THE HUMAN EACE. 63 

duratioB. The Mechanic Arts are the pillars 
which support the complicated fabric of modern 
society, and there is a spirit on the watch which 
will not easily allow the blind Sarason of war to 
shake them and to bnry civilization nnder their 
rnins. Hence the present hesitation in the bel- 
ligerent dispositions of Europe. The sword itself 
is made to think and reflect ; it may fret in the 
scabbard, but before it leaps ont, it is bound to 
consult the scythe, the plough, and the other 
engines of industry. 

There are evils, however, to be apprehended 
from the excessive development of the Mechanic 
Arts, and from their exercising a sort of mono- 
poly over the public mind. It is the "over- 
sharpening of the appetite for property, which," 
as it has been observed, "although a "great bless- 
ing in its nature, degenerates into a great curse 
when it transgresses the bounds of moderation." 
This seldom happened when the plain necessaries 
of life were the objects of exchange or barter, be- 
fore money had become a medium of trade. But 
when money became the representative of every 
kind of property, it inflamed the covetousness 
which is innate in the human heart, and a sordid 
spirit tainted the cultivation of the Mechanic 
Arts. I have said that they had paved the way 



64: INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC AETS 

to tlie Fine Arts, inasmucli as tlie researches of 
pleasure are apt to succeed the jjursuit of the 
conveniencies of life. But when the Mechanic 
Arts are permitted to create too keen a feeling . 
of cupidity in a people, the Fine Arts degenerate. 
Cupidity and intellect may invent a money- 
making machine, but will never be productive 
of those sublime inspirations of the soul which 
are necessary to the creation of a fine statue, a 
beautiful painting, or an epic poem such as the 
Iliad, the JEneid, or Paradise Lost. The Fine 
Arts scowl upon that country where there is no 
other criterion of the merit of labor than what it 
will bring in dollars and cents, and where a man, 
before he addicts himself to any pursuit, puts to 
himself this question : will it pay ? In such a 
country where " Mammon wins his way when 
Seraphs might despair," the Fine Arts droop and 
languish, because, as the cant phrase runs: "they 
don't pay." 

I observed in my preceding lecture that, at 
the dawn of civilization, the Mechanic Arts had 
been contemptuously abandoned to the slaves. 
On the other hand, it is a remarkable fact that 
their success may lead back to slavery, and that, 
if one of their blessings is emancipation and the 
diffusion of comforts, one of their evils may be 



ON THE HUIVIAN KACE. 65 

seryitude and famine, resulting from their over- 
growth, and from their predominating over all 
the other purely moral, intellectual, and specu- 
lative pursuits of mankind. To be convinced 
that this is to be apprehended from their undue 
extension, from their usurpation of too large an 
interest in the consideration of society, and from 
their over exciting the appetite for wealth, one 
has only to look at the state of things existing in 
the manufacturing districts of certain communi- 
ties, where nothing is to be seen but a vast ag- 
glomeration of abject poverty, vice and despair 
— the mockery of free will having no choice of 
action — starvation goading feebleness into labor, 
and the most energetic toil of the hand and the 
most painful sweat of the brow hardly relieving 
the first necessities of life. But the problem of 
cheap j)roduction is solved — an impetus is given 
to commerce — consumption takes a wider range 
— the capitalist draws enormous profits from his 
investments — tlie marked progress of the Me- 
chanic Arts is quoted exultingly in official do- 
cuments — and newspaper commendations are 
-showered upon the prodigies accomplished by the 
national industry. But it is forgotten that 
bondage has been introduced in the land — a 
Shylock bondage — that which claims, not the 
6* 



66 INFLUENCE OP THE MECHANIC AETS 

ownersliip of the whole structure of a man's 
body — God forbid ! — but merely the pound of 
flesh nearest the heart — that bondage secured 
by a contract in which want is the seller, spe- 
culation the purchaser, and cupidity the drawer 
and recorder of the title deed — that bondage — 
the worst of all — by which a man becomes the 
slave of another without becoming his property, 
and in whose preservation his master takes no 
interest, because their ties and connexions are 
accidental and precarious, and because that 
master paid nothing for the miserable human 
tool whom he flings aside with careless contempt, 
or frigid indifference, when worn out and unfit 
for further use. 

If it is true that the Mechanic Arts have 
civilized man by stimulating his intellect, it must 
be admitted that they are apt to brutalize and 
stultify him when every moral and intellectual 
consideration is sacrificed to the perfection of 
material products and to the multiplication of 
physical comforts ; and if they facilitate the in- 
crease of our race, they remind us that the prin- 
ciple of evil is never far from the principle of 
good, by giving rise to all those social infirmities 
which are the natural consequences of an excess 
of population. Thus, in countries thinly peopled, 



ON THE HTJMAIJ RACE. 6Y 

it is not uncommon to see the same man engaged 
in various arts or operations ; and, as lie cannot 
be eqnallj expert in every one of them, he is 
often obliged to draw on his wits, and to supply 
his w^ant of manual skill or training by taxing 
his mind and straining his powers of invention ; 
and, besides, he is not unfrequently called upon 
to ascertain the various relations that may exist 
between trades, professions, or occupations, ap- 
parently dissimilar, and to iind out the assistance 
which he may derive from that discovery. Under 
such circumstances the Mechanic Arts are a 
blessing, for they sharpen the intellect, and the 
labor w^hich they impose on man is sufficiently 
remunerated to enable him to satisfy his wants. 
But, in populous countries, where the simplest 
art is split into parts — where, for instance, an 
incredible number of hands are employed in the 
single operation of making a needle, it is evident 
that this distribution of labor secures the 
rapidity, the cheapness and the perfection of the 
production, but the wages of each operative are 
barely sufficient to enable him to keep up the 
breath of life in an emaciated and sickly bodily 
frame ; and the mind confining its attention to 
a single object, shrinks gradually into so con- 
tracted a space as to leave no room for thought 



68 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS 

or invention ; and we may easily understand 
how a man of the most splendid intellect, who, 
for the sake of procuring scanty morsels of bread 
for himself and family, should consent for years 
to do nothing else than roll a pack of thread 
round his index, would turn out to be an idiot 
at the end of his probation. He who has not 
been thrown into contact with the operatives in 
manufacturing districts which are celebrated all 
over the world, and who has not, witnessed with 
a sickening heart the last spark of human in- 
tellect flickering dimly in the dull sockets of 
their brains, has no conception of the curses 
entailed on the overgrowth of population and 
of the Mechanic Arts. 

Those evils are to be obviated by proper regu- 
lations, by an enlightened legislation, and by a 
moral as well as an intellectual education. ^NTot 
only is education to be generally diffused among 
the masses to correct or mitigaj;e the evils I have 
described, and to help the improvements of the 
Mechanic Arts, but also because all political 
power seems to be centring in those who exer- 
cise those Arts ; at least it is so with us. The 
great bulk of the people of the United States 
may be said to be composed of Mechanics and 
Artisans — and it must be remembered that here 



ON THE HUINIAN EAOE. 69 

the people govern — and that, through the num- 
berless channels of commerce, through the all 
pervading action of the press, through the ex- 
ample of that democracy daily issuing from 
their bosom and travelling abroad, and through 
many other agencies, their influence is extending 
over the world. Hence the necessity of general 
education, not only for the development of in- 
dustrial resources, and to facilitate the pursuits 
of wealth, but also for purposes of government. 
It is evident that, if in the middling and lower 
orders, a spirit of inquiry after knowledge were 
stirred up, it would lead to the introduction of 
many more comforts, conveniencies and improve- 
ments conducive to general health and happi- 
ness ; that it would shed a new lustre on the face 
of society, and that perhaps in fifty years from 
the present time, the world would be greatly 
more changed for the better than it had been 
for centuries. Let therefore as much knowledge 
as possible be imparted to the great masses *of 
mankind. — Let the conquests of the intellect be 
exhibited to them as the noblest ; let them be 
persuaded that the foundation of libraries is as 
necessary as the institution of asylums for the 
blind, the sick,, the orphan and the destitute ; 
let them be encouraged to form, themselves into 



70 mFLTJENCE OF THE MECHAINIC AETS 

associations for mutual improyement and scien- 
tific researches. By such means their attention 
would be directed to intellectual improvement, 
and a taste would be created for the investiga- 
tions and studies which it requires. An ample 
field still remains open for useful discoveries, and 
it may be explored with equal advantage by the 
Mechanic as well as by the man of Science. 
" The exertion of the ordinary powers of intel- 
lect possessed by the mass of society," observes 
a philosophic writer, "is sufficient for the pur- 
pose of prosecuting scientific discoveries, and the 
more the number of scientific observers and ex- 
perimenters is increased among the inferior ranks 
of society, the more extensively will interesting 
facts and analogies be ascertained, from which 
new and important principles of science may be 
deduced." The great book of nature is accessible 
to peasants and mechanics as well as princes and 
legislators. They have only to read it, and all 
that is necessary is that they should be taught 
how to do so. All knowledge is the result of the 
observation of facts and of the concentration of 
the faculties of the human mind upon them, to 
draw all the inferences, deductions and induc- 
tions of which they are susceptible, by the pro- 
cess of ratiocination. Hence the necessity of 



ON THE KUMAN RACE. 71 

education to enable every man, in his sphere, 
however humble it may be, to make the most 
of every fact which may strike his attention, by 
submitting it to the test of intellectual analysis. 
The crucible of a polished mind ought to be put 
within the reach of every mechanic, to give him 
the chance of extracting from the common dross 
of his every day observations the pure ore of 
discovery and improvement ; and, indeed, so far 
as discovery and improvement in the Arts may 
depend on accident or circumstance, the chances 
of the educated over the ignorant artificer are a 
thousand to one, and are also far superior to 
those of the mere speculative man of science who 
never engaged like him in practical operations, 
and who therefore cannot so readily perceive 
what may be useless, defective or unfit in any 
of the methods which the brain may devise as 
applicable to the use or modification of matter. 
To borrow a common expression : '' he is in the 
way of good luck," and he can take every advan- 
tage of it, when it comes to him, should he 
possess the necessary information. It ought 
therefore to be the wish of every one who has 
at heart the improvement of the human race in 
every respect, and in connexion with all the 
Arts — ^particularly the most important of all— 



72 INFLUENCE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS 

the Art of government — to cause the stream of 
education to flow abundantly from the Alpine 
heights of society to its deepest valleys, and to 
make it reach all the lips that may thirst for its 
refreshing waters. 

Thus, I believe, I may be allowed to say in 
conclusion, that one of the happiest results of the 
Mechanic Arts has been — ^that their pursuit has 
become so intellectual that they have made of 
the spreading of education through every class 
one of those necessities to which even the most 
despotic governments must submit, in order to 
keep pace with the improvements obtained in 
those nations where the public mind is unshackled 
and permitted to be enlightened. In our days, 
even emperors and princes vie with each other 
in building up palaces, not for the Sardanapalian 
minions of ease and luxury, but for the exhibi- 
tion of the world's industry, and have erected 
the crystal focus of civilization, to which every 
mechanic from every part of the earth is invited 
to resort — to draw from it the flame of inspira- 
tion — and to receive, in the face of the congress 
of nations, amidst all the pomp, show and circum- 
stance of royal splendor, the reward due to patient 
labor, to manual skill, to cultivated ingenuity, 
to scientific research, and to inventive genius. 



73 



In the preceding Lectures on the influence of 
the Mechanic Arts on the human race, having 
alluded to the advantages to be derived from a 
proper com-se of education, my object in repro- 
ducing this short address to the Graduates of 
the Centenary College of Louisiana is to call 
the attention of the public to a southern insti- 
tution which is eminently worthy of its patron- 



TO THE GRADUATES OP THE CENTENARY COLLEGE 
OF LOUISIANA. 



My Young Friends : — ^Invited yesterday to 
address you on this occasion, I have now come 
to comply with a request which does me so much 
honor. I have come, although weak from fever, 
pain, heat and fatigue. An address, delivered 
under such circumstances, and on the spur of 
the moment, must, of course, be very restricted 
in its range, and cannot be expected to embrace 
any general topic. It must be almost confined 
to complimenting you on the great and remark- 
able success you have obtained in the course of 
7 



74 ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES 

your studies, and this institution on having pro- 
duced such pupils as you are. Tlie academic 
degree* which has been so unexpectedly con- 
ferred upon me, must be — shall be — for ever, 
I hope, a connecting link between you and me, 
and I beg you to consider me, from this day, as 
one of your companions, of your fellow students 
and college friends. I feel that any compliment 
which I might pay you would be but a mere 
obolus, if compared to the large and rich tribute 
to which you are entitled. But a sweeter com- 
pliment to you than any which could fall from 
my lips, I am sure that you must detect in the 
expression of those kind looks which are fixed 
upon you — the looks of mothers, fathers, sisters, 
brothers and friends. They tell you, more elo- 
quently than I could, that you have done well. 
l^or shall I turn round to your professors to say 
to them, that they deserve your gratitude and 
that of the country for the manner in which 
they have accomplished perhaps the noblest 
and most difficult of all tasks — that of imparting 
education. The commendation which might be 
valued by them, as a grateful return for the dis- 
charge of the arduous duties of the sacred mi- 

* Master of Arts. 



OF THE CENTENARY COLLEGE. 75 

nistrj to which they have devoted their lives, it 
is not in mj power to give. Praise, to be ac- 
ceptable, must derive grace and authority from 
the source whence it comes. It must descend 
with dignity from the spheres of superiority ; 
and not strive to rise to objects which, from 
their elevation, are beyond its reach. 'No shrine 
is to be approached without an offering worthy 
of its sanctity, and the presentation of scentless 
flowers loses half of its merit. I shall there- 
fore content myself with expressing to you and 
to your professors my thanks, for the gratification 
which you and they have afforded me, and for 
the joyful pride which 1 have felt since my com- 
ing to these classic grounds. With joyful pride 
indeed I see, that my native State is no longer 
justly exposed to the reproach of not being able 
to educate her youthful generations. That edu- 
cation is properly appreciated in Louisiana and 
in the South, witness this immense assembly, in 
which are so fully represented all the elements 
of talent, beauty, labor, industry and wealth, 
for which our commonwealth and our sister State 
of Mississippi are so eminently distinguished. 
That a scholastic education may be obtained in 
these Southern climes, as completely as in lands 
of more classic renown, witness the academic 



76 ADDEESS TO THE GRADUATES 

honors and degrees wliicli we have seen to-day 
so worthily bestowed — on you^ not on me. No 
longer shall it be said, that our bright sun smiles 
only on agricultural and commercial wealth, but 
blesses not with fertility the fields of the intel- 
lect, which lie neglected and unproductive. No 
longer shall it be said, that all seminaries of 
learning in Louisiana are doomed to premature 
decay, like those j)lants whose growth is 
attempted to be forced in a soil uncongenial to 
their nature. The success of this Institution, 
which now may be said to have stood the test 
of time, is a victorious answer to the sneers of 
detraction. Louisiana will have her nurseries 
of learning, and, when asked for her jewels, she 
will, like the most favored among her sisters, 
point to her Colleges and Universities. It will 
— it is no longer necessary for parents to trust 
the education of their children to distant lands 
and to unknown professors, and Southern minds 
may now receive a Southern tuition. If the 
definition given of education, in quaint, but for- 
cible language, by Montaigne, the celebrated 
French philosopher, be true — " that education is 
the moral and intellectual institution and forma- 
tion of man," — can there be a greater evil for a 
country, than to be under the sad necessity of 



OF THE CENTENARY COLLEGE. 77 

sending away the young scions of its population 
to another country, to be there morally and in- 
tellectually instituted and formed into manhood, 
at an age when the seeds of that early sentiment 
which ought afterwards to mature into patriot- 
ism, are so deeply laid in the soul by the mere 
influence of surrounding objects. 

Even in 1Y42, when this country was a wilder- 
ness, and when savage tribes roamed on this 
very spot, where I see gathered round me the 
evidence of so much civilization, Bienville, the 
illustrious founder of E"ew-Orleans, wrote to the 
French Government : " It is long since the in- 
habitants of Louisiana made representations on 
the necessity of their having a college for the 
education of their children. Convinced of the 
advantages of such an institution, they invited 
the Jesuits to undertake its creation and manage- 
ment. But the reverend fathers refused, on the 
ground that they had no buildings suited for the 
purpose, and had not the requisite materials to 
support such an establishment. Yet it is essen- 
tial that there be one, at least for the study of 
the classics, geometry, geography, pilotage, &c. 
There the youths of the colony would be taught 
the knowledge of religion, which is the basis of 
morality. It is but too evidently demonstrated 



fB ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES 

to parents, how utterly worthless turn out to be 
those children who are raised in idleness and 
luxury, and how ruinously expensive it is for 
those who send their children to France to be 
educated. Moreover, it is to be feared that the 
Creoles thus educated abroad, will imbibe a dis- 
like to their native country, and will come back 
to it only to receive and to convert into cash 
what property may be left to them by their 
parents." Thus wrote this remarkable man. 
But this evil, from which we had suffered so 
long in Louisiana, has now completely disap- 
peared from the land, and you are the living 
proofs that an education, embracing all the 
departments of instruction, can be as thoroughly 
secured here as in any other part of this Confe- 
deracy. You have obtained a home education 
in our lovely South, and you need not leave it 
to visit other lands, except it be to increase your 
stores of knowledge, enlarge your hearts, refine 
your minds, and adorn and beautify the moral 
and intellectual structure already laid out, and 
composed of materials which can be improved, 
but in which it would be too late to make any 
radical change. 

The end of education in man is happiness to 
himself and to others. Here therefore you ha,ve 



OF THE CENTENARY COLLEGE. 79 

acquired the iiMi rudiments of that knowledge 
which is to be conducive to your prosperity, to 
that of your country, and of those beings with 
whom your existence is, or niay become, inti- 
mately connected. In proportion to the degree 
in which you have profited by the education 
you have received, or are in the course of re- 
ceiving, you will discharge with more or less zeal 
and success those social, moral, and political 
duties which will devolve upon you in the differ- 
ent careers which it may be your destiny to 
pursue ; and then will be tested the solidity of 
the foundations of that education, which, per- 
haps, would ratlier be a curse than a blessing to 
you, if it did not rest on the two everlasting 
pillars of religion and morality. It is those 
foundations only which have been laid here, and 
every subsequent day of your life will add some- 
thing to the superstructure which is to be erected 
upon them, and which they ought to be prepared 
to support. Here have been sown the seeds 
which will either prove abortive and perish in 
the ground, or germinate with luxuriance- 
bringing forth the rarest and most precious 
fruits, according to the cultivation which you 
may continue to give to the domain of your in- 
tellect, when you shall have no other tuition 



80 ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES 

than your own, and that resulting from the ex- 
perience of human affairs ; for, to the education 
of the College succeeds the education of the 
world, and the object of the first is to prepare 
for the second. That both may prove to be pure 
and undefiled sources of happiness to you, is the 
wish which I now feel rising from my heart to 
my lips, when I look at the bright array of your 
youthful countenances, which, I hope, will never 
be marked with those deep farrows so often left 
behind them on the human face, as the traces 
of their passage, by those cares, sorrows and 
anxieties, to which manhood is exposed. 

It is your good fortune to live in a country, 
where the whole political and social system re- 
poses on education ; not the education of the 
few only, but of the masses. Here, no restric- 
tions are imposed on the human intellect, and it 
claims the infinite for its domain. The love and 
pursuit of knowledge, and of the power which 
it confers, are so predominant with us, that the 
words — knowledge, prosperity, and the United 
States of America, seem to claim a natural and 
indissoluble connection. This country is nothing 
but an immense workshop, where incessantly 
plies the hammer of Liberty on the anvil of the 
Mind, striking out sparks which illumine the 



OF THE CENTENARY COLLEGE. 81 

world. In these labors you will soon have to 
take your part, each, of you within his sphere 
of action. On leaving this sacred spot, where 
you have completed your academical studies and 
received the only education which is worthy of 
the name — that is, a christian, moral and clas- 
sical education — rest assured that you will feel 
its benign influence through life, whatever be 
the social position which you may occupy, 
whether you bask in the sunshine of prosperity 
or sadden in the gloom of adversity ; and that it 
will make the ills and joys which flesh is heir to, 
sit on you as if they were easy garments. Like 
the rainbow, and realizing its promises, it will 
encircle your existence, and add a still more 
vivid hue to those gorgeous colors with which, 
hope decks the future ; it will increase tenfold 
your natural energies, fill your hearts with holier 
desires and affections, expand your minds to the 
confines of the universe, and, at times, call down 
from heaven its most genial winds to fan your 
imagination into the conception of dreams — 
bright dreams — sweeter than realities. 

Should you ascend the broad and elevated 
theatre of public life, it may suddenly reveal in 
you the patriot, the statesman, the orator, and 
the illustrious warrior. It may entitle you to 



82 ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES 

inscribe your name in the records of immorta- 
lity, by enabling you to wield tlie pen of the 
historian, the poet, or the philosopher. It may 
carry you up beyond the earth, on the wings of 
astronomy, to listen to the music of the planets 
and penetrate into the mysteries of the celestial 
spheres. It may make you, as a mathematician, 
agriculturist, mechanician, or physician, or in 
many other ways, the pride and blessing of 
youi' country, and even of the human race. But 
should you never leave the shades of private 
life, you will find the same influence, like the 
"White Lady of Avenel, watching over the des- 
tinies of your house. By quickening and refin- 
ing the sensibilities of your soul, it will increase 
and multiply your capacities for enjoyment; it 
will make brighter the very fire of your domes- 
tic hearth, and sweeter the smile of your wife 
and the innocent look of your child ; it will give 
dignity to the humblest avocations, facilitate 
success in everything you may undertake, pro- 
cure for you the esteem and respect of your 
fellow-men, and, at the end of your career, you 
will discover that it has secured for you that 
which, in the words of the poet, should accom- 
pany old age — 

" As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." 



OF THE CENTENAEY COLLEGE. 83 

So much for the influence of education, as 
applicable to the common run of life, checkered 
as it is with about an equal admixture of good 
and evil. But, my young friends, the love of 
truth forces me to tell you, that education, like 
everything which appertains to man, has its 
curses as well as its blessings. Education is the 
fire stolen from heaven. The penalty may be, 
to chain Prometheus to the rock, and let loose 
the bird of prey, to feed on his heart. But who 
would not prefer that sublime agony of a God, 
to the sensual and unreflecting happiness of the 
brute ? "Who does not admire that allegorical 
illustration of thought, wearing out the body, 
tonnenting itself with its eagle beak, and writh- 
ing under the torture of ungi-atified aspirations ? 
There are miseries of the soul, always concealed 
from the world's eye, that far exceed in intensity 
the pains inflicted by those physical adversities 
which it is more apt to understand and to con- 
dole with. The loss of rank, friends, family, 
power, reputation, wealth or health is what the 
world pities. The terrible and mysterious ago- 
nies of the soul are what it suspects not, and 
what but too often exists in those who are appa- 
rently happy, and even the objects of envy. 
The white robes of the purest virtue may be 



84 ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES 

gtained by the venom of defamation ; the most 
exalted genius may not be able to make itself 
known to the world, and may pine away in ob- 
scurity ; whilst vice, strutting under the assumed 
garb of virtue, may obtain universal admiration, 
and the unfounded and arrogant pretensions of 
mediocrity be acknowledged as the claims and 
rights of superiority. How many hopes may 
be defeated ! how many desires crushed ! how 
many ties severed ! how many affections blasted ! 
how many deceptions discovered! how many 
illusions fled for ever ! There are but too many 
moments when man, for protection and defence, 
must shrink within himself as within a strong- 
hold, from which he can defy the whole world 
in arms; but that self cannot give him the 
shelter of w^hich he stands in need, if it be not 
fortified and made invincible by education. 

There may be such events in a man's life, as 
will convert his soul, his mind and his heart into 
the most exquisite instruments of torture. It 
was, no doubt, when alluding to such a case, 
that the wisdom of antiquity said : " A virtuous 
man struggling against adversity is a sight 
worthy of the Gods ! " This means moral and 
intellectual, rather than physical adversity. 
Should such be the destiny of any one of you, 



OF THE CENTENAEY COLLEGE. 85 

when grown into manhood, let him remember that 
there are evils which cure themselves ; and that 
education, like the spear of Achilles, has its balm 
for the wounds which it inflicts. It must be re- 
collected, that education is of a tripartite charac- 
ter, and that those evils I speak of can arise 
only from that part of it which is confined to 
the cultivation and development of the intellect. 
But relief must come to the sufferer from its two 
other component parts, which are religion and 
morality. With their assistance, he will fall 
within the description of the virtuons man, 
whose struggles against adversity are a sight 
worthy of the Gods. Through them he will 
know, that there may be joys in the sufferings 
of the martyr, and that, in the agonies of the 
soul and the tortures of the mind, there may be 
a sort of ineffable and indescribable sweetness. 
Thus will he be made aware of the bonntiful 
amends and compensations allowed by Provi- 
dence. Thus will he be made to feel that the sor- 
rows of man, as well as the whirlwind and the 
lightning and the wrath of the elements, have 
their mission, and that there is in them a subli- 
mity, which reminds us more forcibly of Him on 
whom our thoughts should always be fixed, than 
do the smiles of nature when lulled into repose. 
8 



86 ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES, &C. 

I hope, however, my young friends, that you 
will never verify how much of truth there is in 
these sentiments, into the expression of which I 
have been insensibly betrayed, and which, on 
account of their uncheerful nature, may well be 
deemed unsuited to this occasion, but fit only 
for the philosophical consideration of maturer 
minds than yours. I dismiss, therefore, the sub- 
ject to which I have briefly alluded, and I now 
take leave of you, not, however, without thank- 
ing you for the very kind attention with which 
you have listened to my remarks, and not with- 
out conveying to you my wishes for your future 
welfare, and the happiness of all those who hold 
a place in your affections — for, as I have said in 
the course of this address : the end of education 
in man is happiness to himself and to others. 
So may it prove with you, my young friends and 
fellow-citizens. 



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